Come and join us

If you can travel to Nottingham, do please come along to the West Park Leisure Centre in Wilsthorpe Road, Long Eaton NG10 4AA. The centre is about a mile and a half from Junction 25 on the M1. When you come off the motorway, take the exit to Long Eaton onto Bostock’s Lane. After about half a mile, at the junction with Longmoor Road, turn right onto the B6002. The road bears left and becomes Petersham Road. Continue along the B6002 into Wilsthorpe Road and the Leisure Centre is along this road on the left.

This year our show is from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm on Sunday 8th April and Guest Speakers are Clair Crowston at 11.00 am, Marianne Henio at 12.30 pm and Bill King at 2.00 pm. The lectures cost an extra £1 each and numbers have to be limited so it’s best to book in advance. If you can’t then don’t worry, as we usually have tickets to sell on the door. The talks are held upstairs, but there are stairs and a lift, so access is easy for everyone.

Clair Crowston is a popular designer, giving a talk and demonstration on different neckbands instead of rib. Marianne Henio is an up-and-coming designer with a large Internet following and she’ll talk about how her life started in machine knitting and the new directions her machine knitting is taking. Bill King is an incredible fabric designer and his talk is about hand transfer and producing amazing cable-type fabrics on a machine. Bill also takes masses of samples he’s produced for industry and he’s always a source of inspiration. Clair is classic style, Marianne is wacky and modern and Bill always leaves us speechless with knitting you’d never believe had come from a domestic machine.

We’ll have hot and cold snacks and drinks available and last year’s excellent caterers will look after us again. I look forward to seeing all those who can join us. We’ll have the usual lucky dip for free tickets and you could be one of our winners. Send an sae as soon as possible, marked Nottingham in the top left hand corner of both envelopes to Machine Knitting Monthly, PO Box 1479, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 8YX. We’ll pick out the winners before Easter and send out their free tickets at the same time. If you’d prefer to buy your ticket on the door but would like a map then just give me a call.

I’ve had some sad news from Brenda Gould, who publishes Knitting Machine Journal. For a number of personal reasons, she’s unable to continue editing KMJ and August will be her last edition. It means she’ll not have her usual stand at Nottingham this year, so we can’t say a personal goodbye. I know everyone will join me in thanking Brenda for all she’s done to support machine knitting and wish her well.

Finally, let’s all give ourselves a huge pat on the back. In March 1986, the first issue of Machine Knitting Monthly went on sale, so this month we celebrate our 32nd birthday. Some of you have been with me from the very first issue, so each one of us must share the satisfaction of knowing that we’ve played our part in keeping machine knitting alive. My very sincere thanks to everyone reading this magazine for the enduring support you’ve given and long may we all continue to fly the flag for machine knitting.